We want, we yearn to be happy. We wish the same happiness for others. It is the events of life that shape our personal biography. Within it are nuances, intensities, joys, sorrows, achievements, failures, enthusiasms, anxieties, loves, and heartbreaks. We try not only to survive, but to live well with a joyful fullness of soul, which is not without the crucible of pain. Throughout history, people have continued to speak, write, and meditate on the subject of happiness. Rafael Gómez Pérez has published * Ethics for Happiness: The Interplay of Reason, Freedom, and Passions* (Rialp, 2025). In the book, he provides a concise overview of classical, modern, and contemporary thought, accompanied by insightful quotations from authors who have explored happiness and its various aspects. These are astute thoughts that, seasoned with the author’s commentary, help to illuminate the adventure of human existence.

A happy, fulfilled life isn’t simply about keeping track of the glorious moments of one’s personal journey. In other words, a happy life isn’t a LinkedIn profile overflowing with achievements, successes, and triumphs. Such a life, besides being incomplete, overlooks the everyday, routine moments—both boring and joyful—which are usually the most numerous. If life were all about collecting successes, what would we do with failures, suffering, and fears? A happy life, it seems to me, is more accurately described as a fulfilled life that encompasses the light and shadow of the tapestry of one’s life: personal, familial, and social experiences. It’s about being happy in health and in sickness, in abundance and in scarcity. It’s not just about achieving the happy ending of the story; it’s about knowing how to live in the present moment: arriving and making the journey, whether smooth or rugged, a path of growth, even if it’s a real struggle. Flooding and overflows are not uncommon; the important thing is to ensure that these water leaks do not create puddles, breeding grounds for vermin and causing hardship.

Gómez Pérez points out that “perhaps the entirety of Tolstoy’s (1828-1910) great novel, War and Peace, including the nature of the main character, Pierre, is contained in these words: ‘To live only to avoid doing wrong, to avoid regret, is a small thing. I have lived like that, I have lived only for myself, and I have destroyed my life. Now, when I live, or when—Pierre modestly corrected himself—when I try to live for others, I understand all the happiness of my life’ (p. 118).” These words perfectly encapsulate one of the keys to a fulfilling life: love. A love whose doors—as Viktor Frankl reminds us—open outward, which is tantamount to saying: how wonderful it is that you exist, or your happiness is my happiness. Lovers know this, parents know it when they see their children overflowing with joy. Life turned outward. Love of God and for the love of God, love of neighbor—a fruitful key to a fulfilling life.

I also appreciated these simple tips collected by Saint Thomas Aquinas: “Saint Augustine says in Book IX of  his Confessions : ‘I had heard that the bath is so called because it casts sadness out of the soul.’ And later: ‘I fell asleep and awoke, and found my sorrow largely relieved.’ And he quotes what is said in a hymn of Saint Ambrose, that sleep restores weakened limbs for work, relieves tired minds, and frees the anguished from their pain (p. 151).” So many sorrows, anxieties, and weariness for which a good bath and plenty of sleep are enough to regain vitality. Advice from scholars and advice from grandmothers, simple tips that help put things in their place, avoiding unnecessary outbursts and tragedies.

As pedestrians, happiness is made by walking; even better if we go in good company.